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Is Blogging Only For Money?

When one gives a quick look at the articles written on blogging, the common theme seems to be making money from blogging. The authors invariably talk about adsense and how we can make money from blogs. Is blogging only for making money? Did blogs begin with that idea? Are we losing the direction somewhere?

A weblog gives an opportunity to everyone to express himself/herself on the Internet. We feel that we are sharing our deepest thoughts with other members of the world. Blogging is bringing the world nearer to each other like never before. In certain cases, a weblog is a great therapy for venting out anger, frustration and other negative feelings, which can otherwise damage the psyche. Blogging was never started with the object of making money on the Internet.

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Imagine the scenario when the majority of blogs will somehow try to collect content from different sources and hope that their ad gets clicked. Is that not wasting of quality time? Will such blogs contribute to the Internet at all? Who will visit such blogs? Everyone is busy building a weblog that makes money, so why should he/she visit other blogs?

A weblog can contribute to very lively discussion. A weblog can be a great platform to meet people and talk. A weblog is a great way to help budding talents show case their work to the world. Let us not make blogs only as a money making tool.

Blogging to the Bank

First, I have to tell you that I have never made any money online, I am totally unfamiliar with e-marketing and, moreover, until recently I had no idea what “blog” means. But I got in to a situation when I need big money and urgently.

I have made quite a research on the Internet on making money and from all the methods out there the one described by Rob Benwell in “Blogging to the Bank” looked the most reliable to me. I have a critical set of mind, and I will never put a cent into something that does not give me the promised returns. Somehow I believed in Rob’s e-book, maybe because of the way he wrote his ad letter or maybe because he promises a realistic income of up to $500 a day. Many others promise insane $60,000-80,000 a month for doing nothing. I consider them spam immediately.

Once I’ve decided to buy “Blogging to the Bank” I rushed doing so as I did not want to pay for it $97 instead of $47 what it costs right now. Soon he is planning to increase the price as he gets too many customers to manage the orders.

However, already in my “Thank you” letter I got an unpleasant surprise: another ad to buy a new e-book “Blog Announcer Pro” helping generate traffic to your weblog . I think it is not a smart move as customers who have already trusted him get an impression that he is just trying to squeeze money out of us. But as soon as I started reading his “Blogging to the Bank” e-book I realized that it is a great stuff. It is full of useful information, without which I would not be able to do a thing, and he does reveal some secrets.

I have just started to put everything he wrote into practice and eager to find out if it really works. Somehow I feel that it does.

Sure, I am going to keep you posted on my results just keep returning to my weblog .

P.S. Rob also provides in “Blogging to the Bank” a couple of software to buy. Personally, I will wait till I get some earnings using free methods he describes.

Topic Selection - A Key to Profitable Blogging

Blogs may have originated as a means of online journal writing and community building, but the use of this model won’t accomplish much for the online entrepreneur. Unless your cats are far cuter than every other bloggers’ or unless you are an amazingly interesting person with some tremendous writing talents, your personal weblog will get lost in the chorus of voices that crowd the world of blogs. In order to making blogging profitable, one must select a good topic upon which to focus.

Topic selection is at the very root of blogging success. The idea is to choose a topic area in which you can be competitive. Optimally, you can find a blogging niche that is underserved yet has a high level of interest. This will allow you to attract a great deal of visitors more easily which, of course, translates into higher profit levels.

There are a few factors to consider when choosing the subject area for a “money weblog .” First, one may want to attempt to find a subject area in which they have a personal interest, especially if they plan on writing their own content. This is because successful blogs require regular updates and it can become difficult to regularly produce quality information if one has no real interest in a topic. If someone opts to hire a writer to produce their weblog posts, however, this is a far less important factor.

Second, one should strive to find a topic area in which interest is at least relatively high. You may be able to rule the search engines on the topic of “17th century wooden paperweights,” but there are so few, if any, people with an interest in the subject. Thus, that number one ranking in Google will not produce the kind of traffic stream you will need to turn a healthy profit. It may be more difficult to enter a more competitive marketplace, but the potential rewards are far greater, too. The key to this element of topic selection, however, is not just writing a weblog on a hot topic. It is finding a field from which a healthy number of visitors can be culled.

Third, one will want to find a market that is underserved. Basically, you are looking for a strong disparity in the number of interested parties and the amount of readily available information. If you can find a topic in which many people are interested but that is not well-covered online, you will be sitting upon a potential blogging gold mine. It is perfectly acceptable to build a wonderful weblog and to expend the effort to compete in a more crowded area, but this does require much more work. Finding an underserved niche and filling a hole in the marketplace is a much easier way to produce blogging revenue.

Choosing a topic for your moneymaking weblog can be a challenging process. This first step, however, is probably one of the most important. The choice of a topic not only establishes the nature of the weblog , it also (in large measure) determines its potential for success.

Cashing in on the Blogging Community

Blogs are, at their heart, nothing more than web sites featuring a solid content management system allowing for the frequent and easy addition of new material. However, if you approach a weblog from this purely “clinical” perspective, you may be missing out on some great opportunities to maximize your weblog ’s profitability.

Blogging grew as a means of communication, community building and online journaling. These very personal sites created a larger blogging community that continues to increase in population every day. This spurred the creation of several services and opportunities unique to blogging that traditional static sites cannot utilize.

Blogging gives one a chance to grab a great deal of traffic that is often unavailable to traditional sites. We all know that traffic is a critical component to profitability. The more people you get to your weblog , the more moneymaking chances you experience. Thus, it is important for any for-profit blogger to understand some of the unique ways they can improve their numbers simply by virtue of their sites structure.

One example is the weblog directory. There are search engines and directories that service blogs exclusively. These sites can be well-visited and can supply a healthy stream of traffic that other sites cannot access. Some of these weblog -only opportunities, like Technorati, can drive huge numbers to a weblog .

Blogs also have the unique opportunity to “ping” these directory sites. A ping is the equivalent of advising the search engine or directory that your weblog has been updated. By pinging, one can increase the visibility of their weblog and the traffic it receives.

The blogging community also created the commenting system embraced by most blogging platforms. Blogs can be structured to be a community exercise and comments are welcome. Bloggers tend to visit those blogs that visit them, and comments on a weblog are likely to read by its visitors. Thus, one can take the time to make high-quality, relevant comments on other blogs as a means of creating visitors to their own offering.

This kind of community participation can do wonders for search engine placement, too. That’s because bloggers are notoriously generous when it comes to providing backlinks. Bloggers are prone to add other blogs of interest to their list of links. These links do generate traffic directly, but perhaps even more importantly, they also provide backlinks the search engines interpret as a sign of an authoritative site. Your weblog is thus rewarded with higher placement in search engine results.

The effect of these links is amplified by the structure of most blogs and blogrolls. The list of links becomes part of the weblog ’s overall template. They are reproduced not only on the main page, but on each of the individual “post pages.” Although many of those individual pages will lack powerful page rank, the sheer number of backlinks produced can be incredible.

By tapping into the legacy of the blogging community, one can increase the profitability of their weblog . As traffic goes up, so do profits, and blogs offer some very handy ways to nab visitors!

Blogging for Adsense Bucks - Is it Worth Your Time

The internet is brimming with articles, ebooks and hype about using blogs in conjunction with Google’s Adsense program as a means of generating revenue. The formula for success, it seems, is simple. You weblog , you place ads, you get traffic, visitors click on the ads and you get paid. The question many people have about the whole process is whether or not the end result will really be profitable considering the time and effort that is required to implement the strategy.

This question has been difficult to answer, in large part, because of the Google Terms of Service for Adsense users. Although the terms have recently been loosened somewhat, users were long prohibited from sharing personal information regarding their success levels and other key statistics that might have provided prospective for-profit bloggers from developing a clear perspective on the profit potential available.

If you are curious about whether or not you can make blogging with Adsense a legitimate moneymaker, it is worth conducting this relatively simple exercise. The results can give you an idea of whether or not it is worth your time.

First, determine how long it will take you build your weblog . Consider the set up time and the time necessary to do initial promotion and to write at least ten to twenty starter posts. We can term this variable ST, for “start-up time.” For our hypothetical, we will say our ST is twelve hours.

Second, estimate how much ongoing time it will take on weekly basis to do additional promotion and to add at least two new posts. Multiply this figure by 52 (the number of weeks in a year). We will term this variable MT for “maintenance time.” For this example, we will set MT at 104 hours (2 hours per week).

Third, add ST and MT. This will give us an idea of the total time required (TT). In this case, TT is 116 total hours.

Fourth, investigate the average value of an ad click in your niche. You can use the Overture bid tool, easily found online, to get a reasonable idea of the value of each click. In order to make your projection “safe,” reduce that number by half. This yields PPC, or “pay per click.” Let’s say the bid tool says clicks related to our keyword are worth about fifty cents. Our PPC is .25.

Fifth, determine how much your time is worth. Do you feel your blogging time should generate at least $10 per hour? $20? This is a matter of personal preference. We will term the resulting variable DR for “desired rate.” We will assess the value of our time at $15 per hour for this exercise.

Sixth, assume a click-through rate of five percent. This is a low figure, as many blogs can generate click-through rates approximating 25%. Click-through rate is expressed as CTR.

Now it’s time to perform the critical calculation. One needs to determine the required number of visitors necessary to produce enough money to make process worthwhile. If we express that number as V, the equation will look something like this:

V x PPC x CTR = DR x TT

This translates to:

V x .25 x .05 = 15 x 116

Or V x .0125 = 1740

Thus, V must be 139,200. In order to make the process pay, you will have to drive 139,200 visitors to the weblog over the course of one year. That translates to approximately 391 visitors per day, on average. Obviously, that is a very “doable” number based on the amount of time we have set aside for the process.

So, for our example, blogging for bucks with Adsense is a winner.

Perform these calculations based on your unique circumstances and you can determine the viability of earning money with a weblog and Adsense.

Content Management System - If you have been trying to make money on the Internet for even a short time, you have undoubtedly heard quite a few names being thrown around. It seems as if everyone sees themselves as an expert and everyone who is anyone knows everyone else who is an expert. It is like a marketing guru clique. And they make you think that if you do not know somebody, you will always be a nobody.

Online Blogging - Blogging can be used as a personal journal or as a space for like-minded people to come and collaborate, bouncing ideas off of each other. Online blogging can also be used for personal rants and journalistic critiques, to collect things such as recipes or to register memos to one's family.

Content Management Strategy - To sell your products and services online, you need targeted traffic. Search engines will send you targeted traffic, and a lot of it, if you take certain steps. The first step in your search engine marketing campaign isn't search engine optimization. Your first step is to understand the internet and how to effectively use it to promote your products and services.

Submitting Articles - Submitting articles to article directories is a great way to increase traffic to your web site, promote your product and establish yourself as an expert in your field. Its also an easy and effect way to gain backlinks to your web site, especially if you have an established site with original content.

Blogging Community - Blogging for dollars might sound like the latest game show or some new drinking game, but it's the latest craze to hit the Internet. Bloggers began blogging for a number of reasons, but as the blog movement has increased in popularity, they have found ways to monetize their blogs and are seeing their commitment pay off.

Indexes Content - Creating and maintaining a web site requires a significant investment in time and resources. Loosing repeat visitors diminishes the value of your investment. Without repeat traffic it is virtually impossible for a web site to be a continuing success.

Adding Fresh Content - As you start getting more media-savvy, you'll find yourself coming up with more and more information and ideas to help the public. Not all of these ideas will strike the fancy of your media contacts, but don't let them go to waste--become a media person yourself by publishing an e-zine.

Free Content Webmasters - Creating Content New web sites are being launched daily. In order to compete, webmasters need to find alternative ways of producing themed web sites. Highly focused articles are often sought by wembasters. Why? Because content on the web is still king! In order to attract search engines and site visitors, webmasters rely heavily on providing new, innovative and fresh content. If the web site content is rich, visitors will come.

Newsletter Content - If you have spent any time online in the last ten years, I am sure you have heard the phrase "content is king." I first heard the phrase myself in 1996 during an undergraduate computer class at my beloved alma mater, Cornell College, (GO RAMS!).